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So Much for Pyramid Power

MG asks: “What does the Catholic Church say about the mathematical evidence in the design of the pyramids, having to do with creation of our universe, judgment and time as we know it? Also the healing evidence of persons and nature around a pyramid? Is it against the church to use pyramids for plant and bodily healing as long as Our Lord is our foundation?”

Most of the theories about the pyramid powers described in this email derive from what is known as pyramidology which was the construct of a French occultist named Antoine Bovis. Popular legend has it that sometime in the 1930s, Bovis discovered the power of pyramids while exploring the so-called Great Pyramid which was built by Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) during the Fourth Dynasty. While standing in the King’s Chamber of the pyramid, Bovis noticed that an assortment of cats and other small animals that had wandered into the chamber and died did not rot but instead were mummified. This was in spite of the fact that room was very hot and humid.

Bovis returned home and recreated a scale model of the Great Pyramid about two and a half feet tall and set it in precisely the same position as the real one. At the point in the recreated pyramid where the King’s Chamber would be located, he put a dead cat, which eventually mummified. He decided to try organic matter with high decay rates such as fish only to find that they too became dehydrated and mummified.

This led to the conclusion that pyramids had all kinds of power from the ability to preserve foods, and improve health, meditation, and psychic abilities, to increasing the life span of brine shrimp and sharpening razor blades. (I’m not making this up.) Even animals such as dogs and cats are said to be magnetically drawn to the pyramids where they supposedly thrive (except those that die and become mummified). Others claim that pyramids generate negative icons that supposedly have a balancing effect on the body’s electromagnetic field.

There is a long list of fantastic claims attributed to pyramids, or what many refer to as pyramidology, as a result of Bovis’ discoveries. The only problem is that Bovis never visited a pyramid – and this is by his own admission.

In an excerpt from a pamphlet he published in 1935, entitled Exposé de M.A. Bovis au Congrès International de Radiotellerie à Nice,” translated by Jean-Paul Buquet, and appearing on Skeptic.com, Bovis admits to “being unable to go there to experiment and verify the radiations of the Keops Pyramid.”

But even if he had, other reputable sources have tested these and other outlandish theories about the pyramids and found them to be wanting.

For example, a neurologist named Terence Hines details in his book, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, that the so-called “pyramid power” is a pseudoscience.

“The idea was that the pyramidal shape itself was magical and filled with a mysterious energy and power… Pyramid power claims have actually been tested. Alter (1973) and Simmons (1973) showed that pyramid-shaped containers were no more effective than any other shape at preserving organic matter (flowers or meat) placed in them. Nor did putting dull razor blades in a pyramid-shaped holder restore them to sharpness, contrary to a frequent claim of pyramid power promoters.”

The Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters also aired a show in 2005 where similar tests were conducted and the power of the pyramids failed to materialize.

This holds true for the alleged mathematical codes that are supposedly present in the pyramids, all of which are in dispute.

“Generations of investigators have been convinced that—through divine revelation or the assistance of extraterrestrials—the builders of the Great Pyramid embedded the sum total of scientific knowledge within the dimensions of the structure,” says this article appearing in Smithsonian Magazine. “Fringe pyramidologists persist in their claims despite a 1992 effort to debunk them by Dutch astrophysicist Cornelis de Jager, who demonstrated the dimensions of any object can be manipulated to yield a desired outcome; he derived the speed of light and the distance between the Earth and Sun from his measurements of a bicycle.”

I could go on and on – which might make for some fun reading – but I believe the above information should be enough to conclude that following these theories about pyramids could result in the practice of superstition and should be avoided.